Schools Pay Student Loans for Underemployed Grads

Adrian College offers a perk for prospective students concerned about low-paying jobs and high loans after graduation: starting next year, the Michigan school will reimburse graduates for their student loans, if they make less than $20,000 a year.

Students who make between $20,000 and $37,000 will also receive assistance on a sliding scale, the school tells The Wall Street Journal.

Adrian President Jeffrey Docking says 90 percent of employed graduates have jobs in their field, and about a third go on to graduate school. Still, WSJ reports that the average student has $17,000 in student loan debt.

"We listened to parents," says Docking. "Almost to a person, people expressed concern about the amount of debt [students] may carry coming out."

Adrian is one of a handful of U.S. colleges who offer programs like this, helping students with loan repayment when they make under a certain amount, post-graduation. (The cap is usually somewhere in the mid-30,000 dollar range.)

Last year, more than half of America's college graduates were unemployed, or working at low-paying jobs. In a time when students must factor post-graduate salaries (and thus, their ability to repay those ever-growing student loans) into their college choice, it will be interesting to see if more colleges adopt similar programs in order to woo applicants.

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